The present invention relates to both methods of making wire harnesses and apparatus for making wire harnesses wherein the wire harness making apparatus includes an improved harness wire transport assembly.
Wire crimping apparatus have been used in the making of wire harnesses for some time. Such apparatus have been used to make wire harnesses that include a set of harness wires of a predetermined length and a set of electrical connectors connected to opposing free ends of the harness wires. A typical harness-making apparatus includes a wire supply, a wire measure and feed means for feeding a predetermined length of a set of harness wires from the wire supply, means for terminating connectors to the free ends of the wire harness set, means for cutting the harness wires to a specified length, and wire transporting means for holding the harness wires in place and transporting the harness wire set from the wire feeding means to the connector terminating means, downstream of the wire transporting means, whereat connector housings are terminated to the opposing free ends of the harness wire set, such as by crimping.
In such apparatus, the wire feeding means and the connector terminating means are arranged side-by-side transversely to the direction in which the wires are fed. Therefore, the wire transporting means is designed so to reciprocate between the wire feeding means and the connector terminating means transversely relative to the wire feed direction.
However, in the making of wire harnesses with such apparatus, the wire feeding means ceases operation for a time while the harness wire set is transported from its location immediately ahead of the wire feeding means to the connector terminating means, where connectors are terminated to opposing ends of the harness wire set. The wire feeding means lies dormant in a stand-by position until the connector termination has been completed. This dormancy is necessitated by the back and forth reciprocal movement of the wire transporting means across the feedpath of the wire feeding means, thus preventing the wire feeding means from operating during movement of the wire harness set to its termination location.
This dormancy is a disadvantage in the production of wire harnesses, because it lowers the efficiency with which harnesses can be made. There has been an increasing demand for the continuous working of wire feeding means because it takes relatively more time to feed and measure the harness wires in their discrete sets, as compared with the other wire harness assembly steps.
The present invention overcomes this disadvantage and virtually eliminates the dormancy of the wire feeding means by redirecting the movement of the harness wire set transporting means out of the feedpath of the wires.